The Trump administration has imposed terrorist designations on three Guatemalan drug trafficking groups, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Friday. The State Department designated Los Lorenzanas as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, and the Treasury Department designated Los Huistas and Los Mendoza as Specially Designated Global Terrorists for providing material support to U.S.-designated Mexican cartels.
“These three Guatemala-based groups have deep ties with Mexican cartels, helping to move and export illicit drugs to fund terrorism and criminal activity,” Rubio said. He called Los Lorenzanas, a family clan based in eastern and northern Guatemala along the border with Honduras, “one of Guatemala's most powerful drug trafficking clans.” “The Trump administration will continue to use all available tools to protect our nation by keeping illicit drugs off our streets and disrupting the revenue streams funding violent narcoterrorists,” he said.
Treasury's sanctions arm, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, said Los Mendoza and Los Huistas control strategic trafficking corridors along Guatemala's borders with Honduras and Mexico, making them indispensable logistics partners for the Sinaloa Cartel and the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, known as CJNG. Both cartels were designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations in February 2025. Los Mendoza was sanctioned for providing material support to the Sinaloa Cartel, and Los Huistas for providing material support to both the Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG.
The designations carry hard consequences. Any assets the groups hold under U.S. jurisdiction are frozen, Americans are barred from dealing with them, and entities owned 50 percent or more by them are blocked as well. The Foreign Terrorist Organization label on Los Lorenzanas goes further: knowingly providing material support to the group is a federal crime carrying up to 20 years in prison. The FTO designation takes effect when it is published in the Federal Register.
For Americans, the point of aiming at Guatemala is the drugs themselves. The corridors these groups control are part of the road cocaine and other illicit drugs travel on their way to the United States. The administration's stated purpose is to cut the money and the logistics before the drugs reach American streets — attacking the cartels' supply chain at the link south of Mexico, not only at the border.
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